Giving the devil his due process

Scholar challenges Satan's evil image

Popularized by John Milton's "Paradise Lost," the stories that became canons of popular culture actually originated in ancient Jewish texts that never made it into the Bible.

"In those stories, Satan is the Professor Moriarty of the universe," Mobley said, referring to the criminal mastermind in Sherlock Holmes. "The reason bad things happen is because there is a secret organized force dedicated at all times and all places to fouling the wellsprings of happiness."

Good vs. evil

He praises Kelly's approach.

"But it's never going to garner mass popularity because people like a good ol' cowboy movie where good guys and bad guys are against each other," Mobley says.

Kelly, a self-proclaimed "diabologian," published his first defense of the devil in 1964. He could not accept church teaching that Adam and Eve's sin of disobedience was instigated by the devil to stain humankind for eternity. Most Roman Catholics believe all of humanity fell from grace at that moment they call "original sin." Kelly does not.

Kelly's theories do not sit well with traditional theologians. Erasing original sin takes away the guilt and threat of damnation used for centuries to galvanize congregations, he says; "If that didn't happen, a lot of rewriting has to be done in Christianity."

Students at the "Satan Seminar" found Kelly's theories more helpful than heretical.

"Modern American culture is defined by fundamentalist Christians," Binz said. "There are lots of gray areas in real life."

Joan Robertson, an art therapist from Three Rivers, Wis., said she came to the "Satan Seminar" to learn how to help her clients. Biblical imagery often emerges in the artwork of patients with schizophrenia and other forms of chronic mental illness.

"This idea of being possessed by the devil, in the clients I've worked with it's a fairly common theme," said Robertson, 62.

"I think it will help one to see Satan as God's advocate," she continued. "It will help them understand that some truth can come through this dark and frightening experience. An agent of God can be an agent of healing."

Laughing, she added: "I can imagine that might take a while for all of that to sink in."